From typicallyspanish.com
Spain Papers Review - Monday April 28 2008
By h.b.
Apr 28, 2008 - 9:45 AM
El Mundo leads with the headline that the new Minister for Employment and Immigration, Celestino Corbacho, wants stable immigrants in Spain to be able to vote in the Municipal elections. He is, of course, talking about immigrants from outside the EU as Europeans already have the right to vote in the municipal poll.
‘If a person is eight or ten years living here and wants to stay, it seems reasonable to me that he participates in the local elections’.
Not often that El Mundo and Público choose the same lead, but the left wing paper says that Corbacho has changed the Government's line on immigration.
El País leads with the revelation that the head of Al Qaeda in Spain financed the units active here from his prison cell. The paper says Abu Dahdah moved 2.4 million € in the years 2006 and 2007.
El Mundo prints the results of a new opinion poll carried out for the paper and headlines that two out of three Spaniards think that Zapatero did not tell the truth about the economic crisis during the election campaign. 63% think the measures announced by the Government are insufficient, 54% think things will get worse and only 16% think things will improve. 81% say they have been affected by recent price rises.
El País notes what it calls a ‘tsunami’ of price rises across the world, and that protests about price rises have been seen for the first time by immigrants in the Persian Gulf.
Público looks at how the increased price of rice has started alerts around the world.
El País notes that the Spanish Health Ministry has now lifted the prohibition on the sale of Sunflower oil, and said that all oil on sale today is fine.
ABC says that the penal courts in Spain have as many as 269,855 cases pending. The back up in the justice system has resulted in a third of the penal sentences being handled by just 5.4% of the judges. The paper says that magistrates and civil servants are blaming working methods and computer systems.
El Mundo has a front page photo of the Spanish tuna fishing boat ‘Playa de Bakio’ being escorted towards the Seychelles by the navy frigate ‘Méndez Núñez’ after being released by Somali pirates.
The paper says that one of the negotiators of the release has confirmed the payment of a ransom to the pirates – 1.2 million dollars.
El País notes that the PP is ‘converting the liberation of the crew into a political battle’. The paper notes the PP have asked the Government to explain the ransom payment to Congress.
ABC says the crew of the Spanish tuna fishing boat will need psychological help when they get back home.
In international stories all the papers cover the case from Austria where a woman was held hostage for 24 years and raped by her father. El Mundo says she had seven children with him.
ABC says that the father claimed that she had escaped from home aged 11 and since then she has been kept in the basement.
Back in Spain,
El Mundo reports that the Government is looking at the possibility of taxing people who acquire public debt from financial havens. The paper says the PP considers it a micky-take for residents of Spain who are paying 18%.
Público has an investigation into the two regional TV stations in strong PP areas – Canal 9 in Valencia and Telemadrid.
El Mundo notes that a goal from the centre of the pitch by Senna gave Villarreal victory over Betis and postponed the winning of the league by Real Madrid.
Many papers have photos of Rafa Nadal, victorious for the fourth consecutive year in the Montecarlo open. El Mundo says he is the first player to win the title four times in a row.
ABC has a large front page photo of the player who beat Roger Federer in the final.
And finally,
El País has a photo of a disappointed Fernando Alonso on the back of a moped after an engine failure in front of his home crowd in the Spanish Grand Prix in Montmeló yesterday.